Chapter 6

As we pressed forward, a large rise crested the horizon, stretching nearly as far as we could see. Clearly a massive geologic event had taken place here sometime in the past, causing an upheaval along a fault line and creating a sheer cliff face. Our destination turned out to be an entire campus at the base of this formation, though not quite as sprawling as what remained in the Ishtar Sink. Most of the buildings had held up well in the years since the Collapse. They definitely knew how to build in the Golden Age, I'll give them that. A few sections of wall had crumbled, there were a few places where the roof had given in on a couple buildings, but things were mostly intact.

We were on high alert for any sign that the Vex had found this place before us, but saw no hints of movement. As we drew closer and began to creep down the remnants of streets on our sparrows, we saw no signs of recently activity, giving hope that whatever had been on these computers would still be intact. Splitting up, we did a quick sweep of the campus and then met back up where we had first approached.

"No sign of anything," Celeste said, stepping off her sparrow. "It's a ghost town."

"Good, that means the Vex probably haven't found this place yet," I replied.

"True, but there is no way to know if they managed to follow us," Zillah chimed in, "so we need to find an access point quickly."

"Agreed. Given the layout of the compound and the size of the centermost building, I believe it to be the best place to begin," Scott opined.

We all dismounted our sparrows which digitized and disappeared as our Ghosts stored them away. On foot, we made our way along the cracked remains of a paved road. Elgan hovered briefly near my shoulder before quickly flitting toward the nearest building, scanning badly faded signs and markings. He moved to the next building and did the same. I kept an eye out for him to make sure he kept pace with us as we passed through the campus.

The eeriness of passing through empty, dilapidated buildings wore off a long time ago. Sadly, it was pretty much an everyday occurrence when one left the Tower. Every now and again, though, I would still get that feeling of being watched and have to double check behind me or spend a few minutes staring into a vacant window. There was nothing to see, however. The only unquiet dead here were us.

We reached the central building and found what seemed to have been the main entrance when this place was active. The double doors were open now, one lying flat on the ground, the other barely hanging on rusted hinges. Zillah gave it a push and it fell to join its brother. Ghosts materialized and activated their lights, giving beams of illumination to the darkened interior.

Mold was growing on the walls, and everything was covered with dust, which was disturbed as we passed by, giving another indication that no one had been here in some time. The only thing left standing in the foyer was a large plasteel desk near the far wall. On either side of the desk were doorways heading further back into the building.

"We should probably split up," I said, "Zillah, you're with me. Celeste, you take Scott."

"Left or right?" she asked.

"I'll let you pick."

She seemed to mull it over for a moment, then went to the door on the left, leaving the right for Zillah and I. Neither Warlock took issue with the division of forces. I'd almost been tempted to take Scott with me to keep an eye on him, but I trusted Celeste to take care of him and had a feeling sending her off with Zillah would not have ended well.

Passing through the right-hand door, we were greeted with a dark hallway, long enough that our Ghosts lamps did not reach the end. Immediately to our right was a stair well, heading both up and down into subterranean levels. Here we saw the first sign of the previous occupants of the building, as Elgan's beam passed over two skeletons were huddled together just inside the now empty door frame. I could not see how far down the stairs went, but guessed it was several floors. Zillah's Ghost disappeared over the side and confirmed that a moment later.

"There are three floors above accessible through this stair well; five floors down," the chocolate-colored Ghost stated. "The bottom two floors have plasteel doors that are still in place."

"We will probably need to go down," Zillah stated. "Most of the important work will have been carried on below the surface. Systems down there would probably have been better protected from weather and whatever happened here during the Collapse."

"Makes sense," I said before switching to the wider communication frequency, "Celeste, we're heading down to the lower levels. You two keep looking around topside."

"Roger, roger," came the response.

Zillah and I started down the stairs, while our Ghosts scanned and continued to provide light. There were more remains scattered along the stairwell, and we did our best to disturb nothing more than the dust. Reaching the bottom, we came to a solid, plasteel door, just as her Ghost had said. I tried the handle, but the door was locked. Placing my hand against the door, I leaned into it, and found it to be solidly in place. Stepping back, I focused the Void energy in my fist and punched the door hard. It bent from the force of my armored fist, then disintegrated. I stepped through the now empty door frame and lights sputtered and came to life. The whirring of fans could be heard in the distance, air filtration systems coming back on line. Inside, just past the doorway, stood a Vex Goblin.

I grabbed my scout rifle, bringing it to bear. Before I took a shot, I realized the Vex wasn't moving. Looking again, I noticed the red "eye" in the middle of its fan-shaped head was blank and the mind core was missing. It was also suspended on some sort of frame, holding it in an upright position. The body looked ancient, much older than the collapse, a patina having formed on the bronze-colored shell. Glancing around the room, there were parts of other Vex bodies scattered around the room, which looked like some sort of laboratory. Zillah stepped in after me, taking in the scene.

"I think you can put that away," she said, placing a hand on my gun and pushing the barrel down. "This is… amazing. I knew the Ishtar Collective had found and studied Vex, but to actually find a lab… "

Her voice trailed off and she looked around. Stepping off to the right, she carefully lifted a clear cylinder full of radiolarian fluid off one of the lab tables and studied it for a moment, tilting the cylinder back and forth. She set it back down gently, then made her way slowly around the lab, glancing at the contents of each table, reaching out to touch a piece every now and again. The two Ghosts were floating back and forth as well, scanning everything.

"Feivel," I heard Zillah call to her Ghost, "I've found a computer station, come help me get in."

She settled into a creaky chair in front of the terminal. The chocolate colored Ghost stopped scanning and flittered back to her side. Elgan continued studying the various Vex specimens, humming happily to himself as he did so.

"Celeste," I called up to the other team, "we've entered some sort of lab. It looks like they were studying Vex remains down here. Zillah found a computer and is trying to get in. Scott may want to come down. Find anything interesting up top?"

"Nope," she replied. "Looks like this was mostly office spaces, conference rooms, things like that. Not much is left up here. The Cryptarchs might like getting their hands on a few of books if they could do it without them falling apart, but nothing else. I'll send Scott down."

I continued to study the Vex Goblin for a few moments, and then Scott arrived. Much as Zillah had before him, he weaved his way through the lab, picking up samples, taking everything in as he slowly made his way to the computer station. It briefly crossed through my mind that this must be a small taste of what Warlock heaven would be like.

Leaving the Warlocks to their work, I stepped out of the lab and took the stairs up to the next floor, which had the other plasteel door. Like the bottom floor, this door was locked and still firmly in place. There was a small round window in the door, but the room beyond was too dark to see anything. I briefly considered breaking it down to find out what lay behind it, but decided against it. We'd already found what we came for below. I was about to head back down to the Vex lab when I heard Celeste's voice in my ear.

"Hey, old man, you might want to get up here. We've got rampaging killbots incoming."

"Of course we do," I replied, then added the Warlocks into the conversation. "I'm going topside. We've got Vex incoming. You two need to grab what you can as quickly as you can. Read and sort through it all later."

I bounded up the stairs, earlier caution about not disturbing any remains pushed aside. The sound of sniper fire echoed down the hallway, though I could not tell at first which direction it came from.

"Where are you at, kiddo?"

"End of the hall. Looks like it was a cafeteria or something. Caught the Vex trying to sneak in the back," came the reply. That was followed with, "Oh no you don't," which I'm going to guess wasn't directed at me.

"I'm going to check the front door, make sure they're not trying to surround us. Think you can hold up on your own for another minute?"

"Oh, sure, I'm fine. What are a couple dozen murderous robots? Take your time. Maybe pick me up something at the gift shop."

A quick check of the front lobby revealed no intruders. The Vex seemed to be only pushing in from one direction. I turned and sprinted down the hallway, footfalls echoing and mingling with the sounds of combat. Entering the room, I saw the remains of tables and chairs scattered about. Celeste was crouched near a shattered window, aiming out through it. The Vex were massing outside, Goblins and a couple Minotaurs firing at they approached the building. I noticed a Hobgoblin on top of one of the other buildings adding sniper fire, but it exploded almost as soon as I spotted it. Celeste reloaded.

"So, what'd you bring me?" she asked.

I couldn't think of a good reply at the moment, so I ignored the question and shot out one of the other windows. The glass out of the way, I summoned a magnetic Void grenade and threw it at a Minotaur. It stuck and exploded, damaging the large robot and destroying a Goblin next to it. The Minotaur turned toward me, and I finished it off with several shots from my scout rifle. From there, I emptied the clip into a few Goblins, managing to hit them in the juice box, dropping each with a couple shots.

I reloaded quickly and sought out my next target. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Celeste switch from her sniper to a pulse rifle, peppering the Vex with three round bursts, fired with deadly accuracy. So far, we were holding out, but for every Vex that fell, two more seemed to teleport in. It seemed this might be a war of attrition, and we weren't going to be able to hold out forever.

A swarm of Harpies followed the next batch of Goblins in, spreading out quickly, trying to use their mobility to their advantage. Shots came in through the other windows, attempting to pin us down. We were forced to divert our attention from the main body of Vex, and a Minotaur used that to charge forward, its heavy frame smashing through the wall. Celeste and I both turned to fire on the intruder, taking it down. That gave the other Vex time to press in closer.

"We need to fall back. We can move down the hallway, use the opening as a choke point," I said as I shot off the head of an approaching Goblin, which began to spasm and fire wildly.

"Okay," Celeste replied, then drew her Void bow. Firing a shot at the incoming Vex, she destroyed one Goblin, tethers lancing out to snare the others and halt their advance. I threw a grenade in the middle of the group, and we ducked back into the hallway.

"Zillah," I called out over the comms, "please tell me that you two have things about wrapped up down there."

Nothing but static over the line.

"Well that can't be good," Celeste quipped.

"Let's get down there."

We backed down the hallway, firing at a few Goblins that appeared in the doorway, dropping them. Celeste heaved a grenade down that exploded just past the frame of the door, a wall of Void fire lancing out, blocking the passage. This let us move quicker to get back to the stairwell. We arrived to find the stairs crowded with Vex on their way up.

I punched the first Goblin in its red optic, Void energy disintegrating the machine. I switched weapons quickly, grabbing my shotgun and blasting the next one in line. The Vex had clearly hoped to catch us still in the hallway. Goblins below tried firing up past their brethren to no avail. We tore our way through them, reaching the next landing.

"Where did these guys come from?" Celeste asked, and was soon answered. The other locked door now stood open, and the Vex were pouring out of it.

We continued to fight through the crowd, eventually reaching the door. Looking inside, the room looked smaller in length than the lab below. The walls were covered with electronics, cables snaking away to the form at the center of the room. Lying there, it's baleful red optic focused on us, was the active torso of a Gate Lord. It looked different than others that had been reported, older, like the Vex shells below.

The Gate Lord let out a shrill, electric wail and more Vex materialized in the room. I was about to ask Elgan to give me my machine gun, when I realized I'd left him down in the other lab. I summoned another grenade and threw it, sticking on a Goblin near the larger Vex. The detonation bought us a little time, and we pushed down into the bottom floor.

Vex carcasses littered the floor of the lab. Obviously the ones from the room above had gone down as well as up. Zillah and Scott were hunkered down on the far side of the room. They stood when we entered, Scott breathing a sigh of relief. Elgan zipped over to me and digitized into my armor.

"When we could not reach you, we feared the worst," Scott-20 said.

"Yeah, the comms were cut off. I'm going to guess it has something to do with the damaged Gate Lord in the room above us," I stated.

"Gate Lord?" Zillah asked. "They must have found it and studied it as well. It's still active, you say?"

"Yes, and calling for help. When we reactivated this room, other systems must have come online as well and woken it up. This place is swarming with Vex. We need to get out of here."

"The Vex are still blocking signals," Celeste said, "Whisper can't reach my ship."

"Then we need to fight our way out of here, maybe put that Gate Lord out of its misery while we're at it," I replied. "Scott, how's your Light?"

"Fully charged."

"Good," I said, "Fire up your Storm Trance. We'll follow you up the stairs. At the next level, hit the Gate Lord with everything we've got to kill the jamming. Once we're out we can ride our sparrows far enough from the Vex mob to not get our ships shot down when they come for us."

Scott let loose with Arc energy, electricity dancing from his fingertips and we followed him up. Vex blew apart at the surge of power that ripped through them. Once on the next floor, Arc lightning, bullets, and grenades tore apart the remains of the Gate Lord, and the jamming signal dropped. More Vex filled the hallway upstairs, and we fought our way through them back to the main lobby. A couple Hydras materialized as we exited the building, but they were too late to stop us. We were each able to summon our sparrows and rocket to safety.

...

AN: Thus wraps up our Venus excursion/diversion. Little bit longer between updates this time. Partially things being busier at work lately, partially lack of motivation. You know what helps motivation? Feedback. If you're reading and enjoying (I know you're at least reading, I monitor the traffic stats), please let me know what you think.

I've noticed people enjoy the whole "submit a Guardian" thing. If you have a Guardian you'd like to appear in some capacity, I may be in need of some characters for upcoming scenes.

Order and Chaos - Qui Iudicant - Know I replied in an email, but will say it again here for anyone else curious. The maxims in question were:

42. "They'll never expect this" means "I want to try something stupid."
43. If it's stupid and it works, it's still stupid and you're lucky.

Jayfeattheris Awesome - You're mocking me, aren't you?